Concord City Council Approves Block Grants For 2 Nonprofit Buildings

CONCORD, NH — Two downtown buildings will be converted into spaces for nonprofits with the help of up to $1 million in community development block grants approved Monday by the Concord City Council.

The two buildings — 6. S. State St. and 27 Warren St. can access up to $500,000 each in grant funds but will be used for two distinctly different purposes.

The Concord Coalition to End Homelessness entered into a purchase option agreement with the South Congregational Church to purchase the South State Street building. The building, between Wall and Pleasant streets, was built in the late 1890s. The org plans to convert the commercial business with two residential tenants into eight one-bedroom apartments for “persons existing homelessness,” Matt Walsh, the interim deputy city manager-development, for the city, said. A small office area and laundry room will also be built into the project.

The development cost was estimated to be about $2.3 million — about $1.4 million of which will be used to rehab the building into apartments. Along with the grant, the org hopes to tap into New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority and federal funds for the project.

The Crisis Center of Central New Hampshire recently entered into a purchase option agreement for the Warren Street building.

“The property owner and Warren Street Architects are voluntarily vacating the property,” Walsh noted. “Therefore, no displacement or relocation issues are anticipated with this project.”

The 1890s building, which has about 3,800 square feet of space and is across from the Concord YMCA, will improve the Center’s ability to serve its 1,500 low-to-moderate clients. While the renovation costs were unknown, it was estimated to be around $800,000. The org is also accessing other grants and bank financing for the project.

Walsh said, about two years ago, the city secured around $357,000 in block grant funds to assist the Center in other renovations. But that project never moved forward. Those funds were forfeited later by the city.

The city, in October 2022, put out requests for proposals, Walsh said. About three dozen organizations requested the information. But only two, the Coalition and the Crisis Center, filed proposals.

The block grants are part of a federal program administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through the New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority.

Since the mid-1970s, more than $24 million in funds have been accessed by the city.

The council took five votes to approve the funding, including two votes on each block grant proposal, two resolutions readopting the city’s anti-displacement relocation policy and statement procedures to support the applications for each proposal, and a resolution readopting the city’s Housing and Community Development Plan. All five votes were unanimous, with a couple of councilors recusing themselves due to direct or indirect connections to the Crisis Center.

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